The countrys overflowing prisons just got a little less crowded with nearly one lakh undertrial prisoners being freed on bail, that too in just 3 months. Of the over 1.70 lakh people booked for petty offences and kept in jail for years, many have been behind bars for longer than the maximum punishment for offence had there been a conviction. India has around 1500 jails having a capacity to lodge 2.50 lakh prisoners, but they house close to 3.50 lakh inmates. As many as 70% of jail population is made up of undertrials, which means their number could be pegged at 2.45 lakh. As 70% of undertrial prisoners are booked for petty offences, this category in jails would be 1.70 lakh.
When law minister Veerappa Moily announced his Mission Undertrial plan on January 16 to release or settle cases of 75% of prisoners facing trial for years for petty offences, many were sceptical of the idea while others termed it as a tall claim. He had fixed a sixmonth deadline for the scheme. Surprisingly, Moilys efforts in sensitising state governments about violation of fundamental rights of these undertrial prisoners has yielded results. By April 31, nearly a lakh undertrial prisoners across the country had either been released or their cases taken to the logical conclusion conviction or acquittal in just three months making 2010 a watershed as far as prisons and human rights are concerned.
The highest number of prisoners, 29009 was released in Uttar Pradesh accounting for almost onethird of the total. It was followed by Orissa (13,664), Andhra Pradesh (9,116), Delhi (8,701), Maharashtra (7,252), MP 6252, Haryana (3,219), Gujarat (3,101), Karnataka (2,423), Kerala (2,334), Punjab (2,169), J&K (1,360) and Jharkhand (1,343). The worst performing state in terms of releasing prisoners was West Bengal, which released only 287 of them and that too in February and none thereafter. Tamil Nadu also did not appear to be sensitive enough to the rights of prisoners as only 608 were released. Under Mission Undertrial, Moily attempted to end traditional apathy towards undertrials by police, prison authorities and judiciary by writing to chief justices of High Courts requesting them to facilitate early release of these prisoners. The mission was launched on January 26, Law Day.
Moily said various ways were adopted to allow the languishing undertrials to get out of prison plea bargaining system in which the undertrial accepts guilt and the court records conviction and releases him by sentencing him to a period of imprisonment already undergone, expediting their cases by holding trials on a day-to-day basis and holding court proceedings inside prison premises or through video-conferencing. To ensure that there was no hitch from the government, Moily divided the country into various zones and put an additional solicitor general in charge of it to ensure that the first actual legal reform releasing undertrials was very successful.
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(source-toi)
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